Realization
by Angel And Devil1
Summary: My idea of what can happen after the alt. ending to the movie. No hands were cut off. First Hannibal FF. Please be nice. CHAPTER 7 IS UP!
1. Default Chapter

This is my first Hannibal fan fic...please be nice.  
  
Yall know all the disclaimers.  
  
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Dear Clarice,  
  
I noticed you ran to look for me by the water before you knew that I was gone. Perhaps you thought I would be in the small boat that was tied to the dock. Very noticeable don't you think?  
  
You were so close Clarice, so very very close. I watched you as you sighed when the boat turned to revel that I was indeed not there. Was that a sigh of aggravation or a sigh of relief? Please tell me the truth EX-Special Agent Starling.  
  
I have been keeping up with you work and was glad to find out that you had handed in your resignation forms. Did you finally realize that I was right about your so called job at the F B I?  
  
Please do take care of yourself, Clarice. I have seen you a few times, threw the news of course, and you don't look well. Are the lambs still screaming and keeping you awake at night?  
  
Perhaps we can continue our sessions that were formally held in the dungeon with the late Dr. Chilton listening to our every word. If you ever feel the need to reach me you know how.  
  
Your Pal,  
  
Hannibal Lecter M.D.  
  
PS. Remember when your back was to the fridge and I asked you if you would ever say to me 'stop, if you loved me you'd stop?' I must admit, your answer still plays in my mind.  
  
Maybe it is not the lambs that keep you awake at nights. Maybe it was the kiss. Am I right? Don't lie to me or I'll know Clarice.  
  
Ta Ta  
  
H  
  
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Clarice read then re-read the letter. He was indeed right. Not just about one thing but about everything, from the fact that the sigh was of relief and that the lambs have been silenced but she was still kept awake from the kiss.   
  
Her health had been decreasing lately. Just from the fact of having nothing to wake up to in the morning, do in the afternoon, and come home to in the evening. She mainly kept thinking about the day that the Chesapeake and never wanted to forget about it.   
  
Even with her failing health she would still go out and run, mainly to get the doctors voice out of her head but the result was his voice being louder.  
  
As Clarice read the letter the last wall finally fell down for her. She started to cry as all of her faith in him ever coming back for her was gone.   
  
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Hannibal saw her face when she read the letter, and was shocked to see her smile then start to cry. Even though he loved her, it took him 10 years to realize it, but there was no doubt about it, he could not go over and console her. As she fell to the ground and started crying harder than he had ever given the thought that she would, he got out of his car and ran to her.   
  
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Sorry it is short but I really don't know if anyone will like this. Please review if you like it or not. 


	2. Sleeping Starling

Wow I didn't expect this many reviews! I think I can't write at all! Well here you go, Chapter 2. Sorry if it takes me awhile to post these. I am still in high school lol.  
  
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Hannibal was filled with questions and fear, but his face would not show it. He had years to master the same expression for everything from joy to sorrow, and now it had taken over him. Sometimes he would be happy to have it but other times, other times he wish he could change that.  
  
He slipped into the back of her house quietly, as if he was giving Clarice her goodnight kiss. Passing the wooden floor boards of the laundry room, without stepping onto the loose ones, through the kitchen, and finally into the living room where his little Starling had cried herself to sleep.   
  
Slowly he knelt down and brushed her hair back behind her ear letting his hand linger there for awhile before tracing her jaw line, then moving to trace her lips. With a disappointing smile he leaned over and kissed away a tear that had rested on her cheek.   
  
"Hannibal…" Clarice said with a contented sigh. 'Does she know I am here?' Hannibal said in his brain unable to figure out how she could tell that was him. All of her signs had pointed out that she was asleep. Limp arms, even and deep breathing, every sign she was doing. Just like she did every night since Chesapeake, and even before that, but never in his time of watching over her had she called out his name.   
  
After a few more moments of waiting he decided that the floor would not be the best place to sleep on, especially with her wounded arm. Carefully he picked her up and carried her to her bed, where he laid his little Starling down gently, as if she was one of his precious possessions. As he went to move his arms from under her she grabbed his neck and held him close. "Please don't leave me Hannibal. I…love…you." With that she fell back on her pillows sound asleep as if it had just been a bad, or good dream, and she thought that he was one of her pillows.   
  
'She admits it to herself in her sleep, but why wont she tell me face to face, or paper to paper? Surely she does not fear me. I have known that since the first day I saw her and she stood up to me and even told me the truth about Miggs. What could be keeping her from telling me?'  
  
Hannibal walked over to her desk in the corner of the room. 'You were always about your job weren't you Ex-Special Agent Starling.' He grinned to himself as he wrote down a note for her then tore the paper and set it next to her alarm clock.  
  
With that he kissed her forehead like normal, then left her house as if it was a normal night. Locking the door with a key he had made from her spare she hid under the dirt of her garden. 


	3. Advise

I am sorry it takes me forever to write and when I write it is normally short. Some day soon I will write a long one but right now with school it is very hard too.  
  
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Clarice awoke with a pounding headache and as she looked around she couldn't remember how she had made it from one side of her place to the other. Her questions were soon answered as she saw the elegant handwriting on a piece of paper next to her.   
  
With cautious curiosity, Clarice (AN:I had to put the 3 C's in lol) picked up the letter and began to read its contents.   
  
Dearest Clarice,  
  
What would your Dear Daddy, the midnight watchman, do if he heard you cry out for a 'animal' that is I? Do you think he would be pleased that you finally accepted that you need someone? Or angry because it is in fact me who you want?  
  
I, for one, am surprised that you literally called out to me, begging me to stay with you. You always keep me on my toes.  
  
I will end this letter with advise that I gave you a while ago but I don't think you comprehended it. Clarice you are between Iron and Silver (AN: I hope I got that right its 2 AM and I forget stuff) they are indeed the strongest elements. You are also a warrior, someone who will never back down no matter the odds or the enemy. There is no need to be ashamed when you cry in the security of your home. No one in there will think any more or any less of you.  
  
With that I bid you ado.  
  
Your Old Friend,  
  
Hannibal Lecter M.D. 


	4. Chance to Meet Again

Clarice sat down on her bed after reading the letter, she still had no idea how that came to be there. She knew she locked the front door, but as she sat thinking she became more and more less surprised. This was Hannibal she was talking about. 

The next question that raced through her mind was how did he know she called out for him, thought of him more and more with each passing day. Was he watching her? Spying on her? She knew she should feel frightened or maybe a little more so since he was a convicted killer and how she had seen what he could do first hand, but unsurprisingly she wasn't, not in the least.

She knew what she had to do, knew that he would come back and knew there was no way to speak to him face to face, so she sat down and scribbled a letter, if he was really watching her, which she had no doubt about that, then he would know she was writing not to a friend or co-worker, but to him. Clarice scribbled down a letter on an extra piece of paper shuddering at the thought that she was doing the same as he not too long ago. With that she rose, placed the letter exactly where she had found his, and left the house for grocery shopping.

Hannibal watched once again from a safe distance, knowing full well what she was doing, he had been studying her for some time now, but could still tell what she was thinking well before even she knew. When he knew for certain that she was a safe distance away, he exited from his hiding place acting as if he belonged there, many people don't notice anything if you just act as if you belong, walked to the door, unlocked it and went in to read what she had written him.

This letter was nothing of a mind game, it was clear and concise, yes she does think of him, yes she does call out for him, and shockingly even to herself, yes she does love him. The only question was if he had felt the same. "Why must she even ask?" He thought to himself as he returned the letter to where it was and hid in a dark corner of the room where she would least expect him to be. It was time that they talked face to face once again. 


	5. Stormy Day

As Clarice pulled up into the driveway she looked around trying to find a sign that he was or had been there. A moved curtain, a light on, a light off, something, but like many times before there was nothing there showing any indication that he'd been there. She sighed in frustration as she pulled the keys out of the ignition. She gave him almost 3 hours to go in, plenty of time in her mind for a skilled criminal to break in and leave like he's became accustomed to. "I should just leave a place for him at the dinner table with how many times he's been in there." She muttered to herself as she got out of the Mustang and went to the trunk to get out the groceries. Like many times before she knew it was going to take more than one trip to get all the stuff she bought out of her car, but seeing how the sky looked as if it was going to start raining anytime, she grabbed all that she could and headed to the door, unlocked it and walked inside. She didn't bother to shut it because of the fact she was about to go back outside again. She made her way to the kitchen and sat down the bags, turned and walked right back out the door to retrieve the others. Just as she took a step outside, the heavens broke loose and it started pouring rain and instantly she was drenched. "Great," she said to herself. "Just my luck." She didn't try to hurry for the fact that it would do no good. It wouldn't cause her to be any dryer. When she had grabbed the last of her groceries she couldn't help but feel a strange warmth wash over her.  
Clarice walked into the living room and turned on her stereo which started playing Stings "Sacred Love" CD. With that going, she walked into her kitchen and proceeded to put up her groceries, singing along to the songs as they came and went, unknowingly having an audience that listed from the stairs. Hannibal watched and listened from a distance, sure this was not his forte in music, but with watching and observing Clarice's reactions to it, he found it more and more tolerable. Then, the song came on, the one that always reminded Clarice of her and Hannibal's last encounter. The title track to Stings CD, Sacred Love.  
Clarice laid down on the couch and watched the rain poor down on the roof while she mouthed along to the lyrics. The lightning flashed across the sky as if it danced from cloud to cloud with the music. Then came the chorus where she got more and more into the singing, or so called. She never claimed to be a great singer. Another lighting flashed as the world outside got darker and darker with the clouds blocking out the sun and the rain coming down in sheets. The lightning must've struck the transformer because the next thing she knew, the lights in the house and the stereo went out. Clarice just stayed where she was and continued looking out the window. There was nothing else she would rather do right now than to look outside on a rainy day and marvel at the fact that it is giving "rebirth" to the land. Nursing itself back to health in the form of ordinary untouched water. If only humans could heal with water being poor on them. It would make all the hurts from emotion and physical activity just disappear.  
She thought about that last statement for a little while then realized that they did have something like that, beer, but then that would only give it a temporary release. The problems would still be there with the inconvenience of a hang-over. That's why she didn't have more than a 6-pack in her fridge at any given time. There was no use for any more than that.  
Clarice's eyes started to get heavy and before she knew it she fell asleep to the sound of rain falling on the roof mixed with the steady breathing routine she had gotten into the habit of using when she was laying down. When she feel asleep she didn't hear Hannibal coming down the stairs, feel him kiss her forehead then pick her up and carry her into her bed, or even feel him tucking her in. He then walked down into her kitchen, even without the use of lights he made it without running into anything. 


	6. Chapter 6

The sound of her phone ringing is what had awoken her from her slumber a few hours later. Though this was far from the way Clarice dreamed of waking up, she knew that the call had to be an important one seeing as no one usually called her cell phone unless it was an emergency or she was out of town on an assignment, though that wasn't the case since she was long off the force. Clarice reached over to grab her phone only after a moments hesitation on contemplating how she had gotten all the way upstairs and into her bed, she dismissed the thought quickly as she had possibly walked in a half sleepy stage as she had numerous times before.  
The phone broke the silence once more as she answered it the same way she always had, and presumably the way she will for the longest time, not suspecting what information would be given to her from the other end, "Starling"  
"Clarice? It's Davis." Davis was the man they appointed to replace Crawford. He was middle-aged and possibly one of the 'few good people' that were left in the force. "It's about Delia." Immediately the world for Clarice had stopped. Though she hardly spoke to her best friend anymore they still remained as close as they possibly could. "Go on…" she tried to give him the courage to proceed as she could tell something was really playing on his emotions and she could pick out how this was a hard call for him to make.  
"She's dead." Before Clarice could ask how Davis continued, "she was on her way out somewhere, I'm still not sure where, when her car lost control on the slick road and hit a tree head on. She died on impact… I'll call you as soon as I have more information"  
There was a silence on Clarice's end as she took in the information of how her best friend was now out of her life, much like so many other people she had once head close. "Thanks," with that she hung up and set the phone back on the table. She sat there for a few moments, looked at the rain and remembered how just a few hours ago it was a comforting sight to see, now it was the cause of her best friend dieing.  
Once again realization struck her, but this time in a painful and memorable way, as all the muscles tightened up and she started crying to shed herself of the overwhelming emotions that had just assaulted her. This time though, she was awake and very much aware of the feeling of comfort by a smell of the man she would never forget. Hannibal. 


	7. Chapter 7

Thanks for the reviews, yes I am evil with the cliff hangers lol. English class will do that to you. I should be writing a lot more now. Because of a car accident I myself got into in March I have been forced out of sports (which is something I hold dear) for my last year in high school, so I should be spending a LOT of time writing if not in this story then in a few others I have that are non-fanfics. Like always I thank you for your reviews, they put a smile on my face every time.

The comforting came to her as a pleasant surprise, for she never really thought that Hannibal would actually be in her home. She was not complaining in the least, she had missed him more than she thought she ever would when she had taken her first walk in the dungeon to see him all those many years ago. Had she really known him for almost a decade? To Clarice it seemed to be a short time ago for meeting him, yet an eternity for finding and apprehending the infamous Buffalo Bill.

The time ticked slowly on by and she felt all the seconds in her body, but not in her mind. She knew she should be mourning her closest female friend, but half of her was celebrating the reunion of her closest male friend. "If you would even call him that," she thought to herself.

Hannibal sat there, coaxing her by rubbing her back in a comforting gesture and whispering nonsense in her ear. Had he known the news she had gotten from the phone, he probably would have known exactly what to do had she been one of his patience, but since it was Clarice he knew in the back of his mind that she was different than any of his patience, and once he thought he had her down to a't' she would do something to make him think twice about his assumption.

Finally after 10 minutes of crying, Clarice lifted her head in order to show recognition to Hannibal. She stared at him with tears still flowing from her eyes and gave him a weak smile. "Dr. Lecter." She said in a tired and emotionally exhausted voice trying to put up a strong front but giving up as soon as she saw care and love reflecting from her eyes to his. She knew she didn't have to tell him something was wrong, so she just went ahead and started telling him the news she had just received on the phone.

"That was Davis on the phone, he called to tell me that Delia…" she paused and looked away from him to regain control. Hannibal took his hand and directed her face back to looking at his and to where her eyes were looking straight into his. "Delia was killed tonight. She was going out somewhere and lost control of her car in the rain. They said she died on impact so I know she didn't suffer."

There was no response from Hannibal verbally, but he did show emotion by wrapping his arms around her and because of that she began to cry yet again.

Both of them must have fallen asleep from exhaustion from one extreme or the next, because when Clarice awoke the next morning she noted that it was still raining, as she could still hear it, and she, for the first time in a long time, felt safe as she absorbed the feeling of being held. Even if the person that was holding her was a convicted murderer and one of the FBI's most wanted people, he had never showed hostility towards her so intern she will never show any hostility towards him.

Yet on the other end of the bed Hannibal had been awake for a few moments longer. He laid there in awe that even with the physical and emotional attachment that he taught himself when his sister died, his body still acted on instinct from time to time, and this time he did not mind in the least. In fact he was complementing his body for having such exquisite taste. He knew that now that he had allowed himself this simple pleasure that he could no longer give himself a false assumption that he could be with anyone else but her.


End file.
